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severely?”
    “If I’d had a gun I’d have shot him dead on the spot.”
    “Now who’s harping on murder?”
    They both laughed and she felt better. She didn’t know how they’d gotten off on the wrong foot. “Now that I know the Taipan myth, the painting makes sense. Is that white zigzag coming out of his hand lightning?”
    “Yeah. Too bad I don’t have a tube of fluorescent white for the thunderbolt. Taipan zaps the wicked before he turns into a snake and disappears into the earth.”
    The door burst open with a loud crack. “Dinah, darlin’.”
    “Uncle Cleon!”
    “Come give us a kiss.” He held out his arms.
    She stood up and went to him. “Uncle Cleon, you look…fine.” He wore a quilted maroon dressing gown, a blue silk scarf tucked around his oak-thick neck, and a grin as wide and taut as a crossbow.
    “I ain’t hurtin’ none.” He enfolded her in a python embrace and planted a kiss on her forehead. His ruddy complexion and robust strength didn’t jibe with impending death.
    “Come on downstairs with me, doll, and let’s have a drink. We got ourselves some catchin’ up to do.”
    “I’m really frazzled. A drink would wipe me out.”
    “Bullpucky. If I remember rightly, you’ve got a head for spirits. You take after your daddy in that way. Your mama now, she’s apt to get a little too feisty on the firewater. I wish Swan could’ve been here. She’d sure liven things up.” He let out a wistful sigh. “But, no use bellyachin’. Lucien, your paramour sends word he’ll be up shortly to help you downstairs. Me and Dinah are gonna have ourselves a confab in the bar.”
    This wasn’t the Cleon she’d bargained on. Suddenly, she wanted an ally. “We can help you downstairs if you’ll join us, Lucien.”
    But Lucien shook his head and scowled at his painting of Taipan. “Y’all go on down and catch up. I’ll be down in a while.”
    “Take your time.” Cleon dragged her out the door. “Still woozy from the snakebite, I reckon. Or maybe he’s allergic to weasel fur. Did you know that’s what they make paint brushes out of? Weasels and squirrels. It can’t be healthy.”

Chapter Six
    Cleon towed her down the hall, down the two flights of stairs, through the foyer and into a large, dim great room.
    “Name your poison, doll. Bourbon? Vodka? Scotch? I got a kind of genius for the classic gin martini. Dry as a nun’s fart. Will that do you? I asked the others to leave us to ourselves for a while. Too many mouths yappin’ and nobody gets a word in edgewise.”
    He stepped behind a tarnished mahogany bar and dropped some ice cubes into the scarred old silver shaker she’d seen him flourish so many times before. He’d carted that from Georgia, too. While he busied himself with the rituals of the perfect martini, Dinah perched on a bar stool and took in the ambience. Across from the bar a pair of murky windows looked out on rotting porch columns colonized by moss. Framing the view, faded green draperies draggled on the dirty wood floor. A pair of stuffed boars’ heads had been mounted on the wall on either side of the windows. Their dead eyes stared back at her with a penetrating hopelessness. A grouping of dilapidated leather chairs leaked gray stuffing onto the threadbare carpet and the dark paneled walls exuded the bleakness of a mortuary. Eduardo’s description of the place had been kind.
    Her reverie was broken by the sound of ice clattering inside the shaker.
    “You gotta bruise the gin to bring out the flavor, but you don’t want to inflict a mortal wound.” He unscrewed the cap and drizzled the icy gin into frost-rimed glasses. He clinked his glass against hers. “Here’s lookin’ up your record.”
    “Cheers.” Her initial plan to get blitzed and stay blitzed seemed the last best hope of cheer in this dump. She drained half the gin in a single gulp.
    Cleon sat down on the stool next to her and savored his drink. “Yes, I wish your mama was here to see me off to